Cowen Reports on eBay’s Fastest Growing Categories

eBay’s fastest growing categories in the first three months of 2021 were Electronics, Apparel, Sporting Goods, and Home, according to Wall Street firm Cowen and Company.

Cowen published a research note ahead of eBay’s 1st-quarter earnings release, which is set for Wednesday, April 28, at 4 pm.

While investors view higher “take rates” as positive, as does Cowen in its report, in this context it generally means sellers are paying more in fees – indeed, eBay is looking for revenue growth not in sales growth alone, but in fees sellers pay for advertising their listings and for processing their payments.

Cowen analyst John Blackledge said he was eager to hear more about the latter, writing that it expects to hear eBay management provide more color on the progress of what Cowen expects to be a “continued aggressive rollout” of Managed Payments.

Cowen also published some results of its proprietary survey on eBay visitors and purchasers and noted that the youngest demographic (age 18-34) was the fastest growing.

Stay tuned for eBay’s earnings release tomorrow to find out how much it grew sales and revenue in Q1. What questions should analysts ask eBay about Managed Payments, or anything else?

Ina Steiner

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.